Marshall - May, 2010
Breezes Panama
May 2010
Breezes Panama is a
new property. It's been in operation less than a year. It is located about 2
hours from Panama City, where the airport is. There is a bus which you can
take to get there, but we had a rent-a-car, as we were also seeing other
parts of Panama, so we drove there.
The roads are good
in Panama, but finding Breezes proved to be quite a challenge. All the
resorts had billboards along the Pan American highway, and they all had a
billboard close to the turnoff for each resort with a prominent arrow or
directions saying when to turn. Breezes had many billboards along the
highway, too, but the one marking the turn only had a small red arrow tacked
onto the left-hand edge of the billboard with a note that the turn was in 90
meters. We missed it. And the next billboard for Breezes that was also
before the turn didn't have any information about the turnoff.
So we went quite a
ways before realizing that we should probably have turned. And when we
started asking local people if this was the way to Breezes, they said yes,
so we pressed on until the road ran out. Obviously, they had misunderstood
what we had asked. To make a long story short, we finally backtracked and
found the hotel.
The hotel is very
nice. It is a high-rise affair, with the lobby on the second level, but they
call that the 4th floor. The floors for the lobby and buffet were made of
slate. Rooms go up to 5 floors above the lobby level. The shape of the hotel
is a high-rise wing that faces the beach, and one longer wing (with only 4
floors) that extends down towards the beach.
On the other side of the hotel (opposite the wing just described),
there is a cliff, which has another property on it, but is mostly invisible
to the resort. There are at least 4 elevators, in addition to stairs.
Wristbands must be worn, with one color for adults, and another for
children. I saw a third color, which appeared to be for day pass people.
The resort is on
the beach, but it is mainly a resort of pools, as the ocean can be quite
rough, and I was told there is a big undertow there. (There is no
lifeguard). There were big waves there a couple of days. This is nice for
the crashing surf sounds you hear from your room, but not good for swimming.
The beach is quite empty for long stretches in both directions, but that is
a bit deceptive, as there are private properties on the bluff above the
beach, and sometimes even a structure down at the beach level. The sand had
many areas of black looking sand, which detracted a bit, but didn't really
make your feet dirty if you walked through it.
The pools cascade down from right by
the hotel (buffet level), about 4 levels to the main pool (with swim-up bar)
at the bottom. Many pools are shallow and allow the use of a lounge chair in
the pool. One pool even had a gazebo in it, with 2 or 3 lounge chairs. There
is a short waterslide from one of the higher pools to a lower pool.
Most of the people
seemed to use the main pool, which had a rock wall along one side with water
drizzling over it. This pool had a (removable) volleyball net in the middle,
and a basketball hoop and net on the end away from the swim-up bar. There
was a snack bar near the bar, which turned into the open air Coco Solo
Steakhouse restaurant at night, with tablecloths on the tables, and
reservations required. This steakhouse served barbecue ribs, barbecue
chicken, some fish, and a couple of steak entries.
The EC sound
station was on top of the rock wall, and the sound levels were kept to a
reasonable level. Most EC activity seemed to be focused on teaching salsa
dance lessons, or running games (such as volleyball).
The main buffet was
on the level under the lobby level. It was open air, but covered. There
was also a Munasan and Martinios restaurant (Japanese and Italian
respectively) on that level. Both were enclosed and air-conditioned. The
service at Munasan was a bit spotty, as the courses were served in different
order to different people (i.e. sushi before miso soup for one person, while
the rest of table had the miso soup before the sushi or tempura), and the
cook forgot to serve the fried rice to half the people, until reminded to do
so.
On the other side
of the buffet was a big air-conditioned room which was used as a lounge and
disco, or as the place for an evening entertainment show. The chairs and
tables in this room were quite comfortable, and the bar was large.
There was an
outside bar near the specialty restaurants, and an open plaza area which was
also used for a show one night. The main bar is at the lobby level, and is
open 24 hours(!). This is a beautiful bar, with a view over the pools to the
ocean. Being in the lobby meant you had a breeze blowing through from one
side of the building to the other. They use quality glassware for their
drinks. Champagne was available for mimosas in the morning. The piano was
near the main bar, and had a very talented pianist (Benito)
playing a couple of nights. He was filling in for the regular piano
player.
Longtime Hedo
guests will be pleased to note that Delano Miller and Cheryl Moore were both
working there, and are friendly as ever.
Breezes gets a huge
crowd on the weekends. These are the people from Panama City who drive up
for the weekend. They fill up the parking lot with their cars. They all
seemed to enjoy all Breezes had to offer. There weren't that many children
in evidence, as the school year was still in session. Most kids seen were
small toddlers.
The one big problem
I saw was in the architectural layout of the hotel. Not all rooms have
balconies. And the ones that do sometimes have awnings over them and
sometimes not. And there may be a couple of chairs on the balcony, but maybe
none, also. And all these rooms appeared to be the same price category, as
they would be right next to each other. I would suggest you look at the room
they are assigning you, before you give your OK to the room. All rooms
appeared to be quite roomy, and had a large bathroom. There was an
electronic safe in each room. A few suites were available. These rooms had
the same basic room, plus an adjoining room with a living room setup. Their
balcony had 4 full length loungers on it, and the bedroom had a ceiling fan,
which regular rooms didn't have.
Since the resort
wasn't full, we didn't have to be worried about staying on the side of the
hotel that overlooks the parking lot. All rooms on the wing running down to
the beach had ocean views, and pool views on the one side of that wing.
There was a kids
club there, and also a teen club room. That room had the pool tables and
ping pong tables for the resort, in addition to several (free) video game
machines. There was a gym and spa, on the ground level, and one tennis court
was seen at the top of the parking lot. Sailboats and kayaks were available,
but I only saw one kayak being used, and that was by the person whose
sailboat was anchored offshore. There were 2 jacuzzis amongst the pools. You
go by a golf course as you approach Breezes, but I don't know if golf is
available as an option.
Panama has a long
rainy season. I heard 9 months mentioned for the length. It was the rainy
season when we were there, but the weather was mostly overcast. This helped
with the sunburn factor, and didn't slow down anyone. There were periods of
rain, but we were lucky in that this rain was mostly at night.
Tours are available
to many locations. Some could be long (the Panama Canal comes to mind).
There was the usual Superclubs charges for internet access. There were 3
computers available. I don't know if wifi was available or not. The US
dollar is the currency in Panama.
People were from
Panama, Columbia, Canada, and few other scattered locations, but most people
were from the USA. All were friendly. The age range was quite extensive,
with people in their 20's and 30's appearing to predominate. Service was
good, and of course saying please and thank you (por favor and gracias) was
always appreciated. Interestingly, menus were printed in 3 languages --
Spanish, English, and French.
Being a new resort,
the vegetation still was not lush, yet. But in a few years that will not be
the case. The property was quite attractive. However, there is another
high-rise property right next door (not part of Breezes), which is so large
that it looks out of place. (I called it the monstrosity). It is still under
construction, as are some of the villas that line the golf course. Other
than just being there, these other buildings were not intrusive.
At departure time,
I did not see any guest comment cards, and none was offered. I didn't ask
for one, so I don't know if they even had any. Our stay was pleasant, so
there was no real need for comments.